.

You mean the L.A. Fakers. Garnett has a bigger heart than LA's whole team. Too bad they cant surround him with the best team money can buy like Dr. Buss.

I think Leslie came back as Zumbido.

Justin I also agree with Nick that the other software solutions available are equally as viable as Pro Tools. Digi has to keep up with their competition.

I do use Pro Tools at work. But not at home. I totally avoid mixing inside the computer because of all my bad experiences with PT. Instead, I use my multitrack software (not Pro Tools) as a tape deck. The RME Hammerfall card's outputs sound just as nice as Pro Tools, it performs well and reliably, and I never have an issue with it. The DA7's summing buss is more workable for me, it is easy to see what's going on and I like how the result sounds. Best of all - NO DSP CARD NECESSARY. All my processing can be done natively or with the DA7.

Nick - It is mentioned in the Pro Tools 24 Mix Plus manual how it is possible to overload the buss in 16 bit mode without seeing it on the meters, and how that has been corrected in the 24 bit version (which I have not confirmed, actually to the opposite). However, it is possible that it is the plug ins. I will check into that.

Regardless, the PT mix buss issue is really moot if you use the DA7 for one of the things it does best - mixing digital audio.

Greg

Interesting, Greg, I didn't read that. But as I said, Digidesign gave a seminar at the last AES show in NY, explaining a bunch of Pro Tools myths. That was on of them, and while I don't remember the exact details, it was pretty convincing...and yet moot at the same time, since you can run out of headroom with plug-ins!

(I've never used the DA7 for mixing, by the way - it just sits there routing stuff.)

PTs lacks depth and transparency in its sound. Some can't hear or appreciate that fact. I can say even me and Long argee on this. As well as many others. If that's not a concern, then join the leauge of digi follwers, like those who eat at Mc Donnalds, because it's around more than others.

Personaly I much favor the sonic quality of Nuendo head over heals than PT. DP is a close second, and I use DP. The GUI in DP is much nicer than PTs. Editing just as f-ing good.

No, you don't need PTs, unless your as brain washed and can't hear the sonic differences as the reat of the them out there.

I'm not stateing this because I use something other than, but because of what i've heard. Not just me, but M A N Y others.

A couple of points:

1) When thinking about the Pro Tools decision, you should be thinking about what the intended end use is.

Do you need Pro Tools because you need to have compatibility with other studios? Because your clients demand it? If the answer to either of those questions is a REAL "yes," well then, your decision has been made for you.

If the answer is NOT a firm yes, you should consider other options.

2) When considering options, you need to be realistic about what Pro Tools offers that others don't and vice-versa.

*Pro tools is NOT the easiest DAW application to edit audio on. Not by a long shot. Nor is it the most powerful. A simple inspection of the available functions and how they are implemented in a few popular DAW programs will show you that.

*Pro Tools is DEFINETELY not the easiest to sequence MIDI on. MIDI implementation is essentially an afterthought to DigiDesign/Avid.

*Pro Tools is NOT the ony DAW out there that uses or can use DSP cards/effects. And even if it were, the native power you have available in a decent modern box pretty much dwarfs all the DSP that the original Pro Tools system built its hallowed reputation on. So, where is Pro Tools' proprietary, closed-ended DSP really going?

*Even with the DSP and the fact that it is an industry "standard," Pro Tools seems overpriced (to me, at least) for what you get. It's a virtual monopoly and DigiDesign/Avid is clearly milking it for all it's worth.

*Nonetheless, Pro Tools is a standard that has not yet been unseated. Being "Pro Tools literate" as an engineer and Pro tools compliant as a studio can only help you.

So, you really end up asking yourself a) Do I NEED to have Pro Tools to keep my business going? and if not, b) is it worth the cost to have Pro Tools just to be "one of the boys?"

That's totally subjective, of course. What are you editing? How are you editing it?

We've said that many times in this thread, but calling it an afterthought is...well, it's true, but it's a negative way of saying that they originally conceived of the program as an audio editor with MIDI playback, then added some MIDI features to it.

There are rumors that it's going to get real MIDI features next revision, which will be interesting to see. I think that making it work well with advanced libraries is going to take a whole new fundamental approach to the program, but we'll see.

It built its reputation when computers were nowehere near powerful enough to do what it did. A whole new cottage industry blossomed: plug-ins.

And at that time there were essentially no alternatives on the Mac other than high-end mastering programs (Sonic, Sadie), and there were no alternatives period on the PC.

But of course add-on DSP isn't going to be necessary forever. They know that too.

Hey Justin,

Just saw this thread - couldn't get on early because I was slammed in the studio all week with Take 6 (the a cappella group). BTW, we tracked on RADAR, OD'ed at their place on Logic, edited at my studio on DP and bounced back to RADAR for mixing. Yeah, your right, we ain't pros - if we were, we'd be using Pro Tools, the only way to fly.

Hey Take 6... My dad's a big fan of those guys. Didn't they do commercials for a while too. Anyway I found this quote in Mix from the article 'DAWs and Hybrid Mixing' on page 40. Robert Brock says, 'Logic, DP and Cakewalk all grew up as musicians' tools focusing on the sequencing side, ", "whereas Pro Tools was designed by an for engineers." then later he says, "Pro Tools is a much more intuitive interface,"
This guy admits to using Logic more than Pro Tools so it doesn't seem that he's too biased, but I like how he breaks it down as to its about what these programs were created for.
Also I disagree with Protools being sonicaly inferior to these other programs cause if it was then DP or Logic or the other would be what most of these big studios and the pro's would be using. Being in LA I have tried to get tour's of all the big studios as much as possible, I've seen more Pro Tools rigs than even being close to the second most used program.
my2
sam